Contents

Vault-Tec designed and constructed advanced technologies. It was a major military contractor before the Great War, and as such, developed highly experimental, advanced and secret technologies. In time, Vault-Tec became so thoroughly integrated with top-secret military research done by the Pentagon that it had practically become a department of the U.S. government. The company still remained in private hands, but because of its strong connection to the American government, the principal personnel of Vault-Tec - its executives, top scientists, engineers, and so on - had to be aware of the true purpose of the vaults and Project Safehouse.

Regardless of the American government's directives, Vault-Tec's high-ranking personnel had no intention of submitting to a lottery and living underground with a bunch of human cattle in the intentionally defective vault facilities that they had constructed. Vault-Tec instead created their own private emergency shelter facility for their top employees and their families, removed from the larger vault network, and kept secret from the U.S. government. This facility is now known as the Secret Vault.

A rusty Vault-Tec logo

Vault-Tec did not stop there. This secret, private installation was used to research new, more advanced technologies that would benefit mankind in the midst of post-nuclear environment. This initiative included some extensive research with the "Forced Evolutionary Virus" (FEV), the results of which, unlike the government-controlled research on the virus' uses at Vault 87, was also kept secret from the government. It is known that the FEV stored in the Secret Vault was highly modified in an attempt to achieve its original goals and also avoid sterility among those subjects infected and mutated by it. However, this modification proved unsuccessful.

Other Vault-Tec projects that were intended for the corporation's own use included the development of their own robotic systems, a special biological weapons program (the results of which were probably the creation of a unique race of radroaches and a variation of the deathclaw), advanced biomedical research on the effects of rapid cell regeneration, and even an attempt to create a model of power armor to be used by Vault-Tec personnel.

Vault-Tec's most notable product was the vault. Officially, the vaults were part of “Project Safehouse”, designed to protect the American population from nuclear holocaust. In actuality, they had a more sinister purpose, a project known as the "Societal Preservation Program".

The vaults could not possibly have saved the citizens of the United States from the ravages of a nuclear war or a viral pandemic. With a population of almost 400 million by 2077, the U.S. would have needed over 400,000 Vaults to protect every man, woman and child. Vault-Tec was commissioned by the American government to build only 122 such vaults.

The true reason for the construction of the vaults was to allow the government to secretly study pre-selected segments of the American population, observe how they would react to the stresses of isolation, and how successfully they would re-colonize the devastated Earth and stars after the vault opened. Only a few pre-selected vaults would be used for colonizing the surface, these were known as control vaults, these included Vault 8 and Vault 76.

In addition, most vaults were designed to conduct often immoral experiments on live human test subjects. The purposes and experiments carried out in each vault varied. They included: the use of the FEV on an unwitting test population (Vault 87), the development of super soldiers (Vault 92), the creation of an entire population of human clones (Vault 108), Vault 101 was subject to a "never to be opened" policy: the inhabitants were never going to be allowed to leave, the frequent use of psychoactive drugs (Vault 106), the extended use of a virtual reality simulator on a population (Vault 112), to observe the effects of long-term cryogenic suspended animation on unsuspecting test subjects (Vault 111), and so on.

This project was the work of the Enclave, a secret shadow organization of federal officials and corporate executives that used the Vault-Tec company to set up this sinister experiment. The Enclave considered themselves prime candidates for recolonizing the world after a nuclear holocaust and to this end commissioned the construction of their own shelters, isolated from the vault network. The results of the vault experiments were intended to help prepare the Enclave for either re-colonizing Earth or colonizing another planet if Earth turned out to be uninhabitable.

The experiments were monitored by Vault-Tec researchers in separate facilities. Sometimes select vault inhabitants (frequently the overseer) were aware of the nature of the experiment and also gathered data.

The experiment may be considered a success in terms of the data collected: data that was much more important to the Vault-Tec and Enclave scientists than a few-hundred thousand lives. Perhaps they felt that the trade-off was mutual, as most of the vault dwellers would have died anyway if not for the vaults.

Although the vaults were supposedly designed with longevity in mind, many vaults had insufficient resources and are in dire need of repair. It is uncertain whether or not the Vault-Tec vaults were actually supposed to malfunction as many did, or whether they were deliberately ill-constructed. It seems that the company may have focused its resources primarily on the experimental vaults, leaving the control vaults with inferior materials and little chance of survival. This may be why there were recurring problems with water chips. Or it may be that over time, certain pieces of technology simply wore out and broke. In many cases, such as Vault 3, the community's fate is decided by a single malfunction.

The only known vaults to continuously function successfully are Vault 101, Vault 112 and Vault 81. Their vault experiments were intended to continue indefinitely.

In the year 2077, Vault-Tec opened up an exhibit in Nuka-World. One of the purposes of the attraction was to draw in more vault customers, but visitors and staff were subjected to radiation, subliminal messages, toxins, and brainwave disruption as part of Vault-Tec's grand scheme.

Vault-Tec vaults and their other technology appear in all of the Fallout games.

Outside of the Fallout series, the Vault-Tec logo also appeared in the 2016 reboot of Doom (published by Bethesda Softworks) on certain doors in the UAC facility on Mars. Vault-Tec is also mentioned in RAGE.

The following is based on unverified behind the scenes information and has not been confirmed by canon sources.

The vault experiment was an idea created by Tim Cain during the initial stages of Fallout 2 development.

End of information based on unverified behind the scenes information.

The following is based on Fallout 2 cut content and has not been confirmed by canon sources.

Vault control room

The developers intended for the player to first encounter information about the Vault Experiment as they read the Vault 8 records in Fallout 2. They could discover a classified file (opened with a successful Science skill roll) explaining the purpose of Vault 8 was to be a "control vault," designed to hold 1000 people and open at a designated time. This file was intended to foreshadow the discovery of the true and sinister purpose of the vaults.

The player was also intended to apply their Science skill to the central computer in Vault 13 to obtain a history of Vault 13, the overseer's involvement in the Vault Dweller's expulsion, and even worse, the true purposes of the vaults.[3] The overseer was conscious of the true purpose of the vaults as social experiments on a grand scale, and consequently drove out the Vault Dweller because of fear he would ruin the experiment... or uncover it.